CARE Australia worker Steve Pratt, convicted of spying
by the Serbian Government last year, helped set up a team of ex-military
personnel to monitor events in Kosovo, an SBS TV
report claimed last night.

The peace monitors were to gather intelligence for the
Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
but were to share any information they received with the Serbian
Government.

Pratt, fellow Australian Peter Wallace and CARE
staffer Branko Jelen were arrested as they tried to leave Serbia
on March 31 and were convicted later of spying
for NATO by a military court. While the three CARE
Australia workers were not part of the monitoring agreement, SBS
alleged Pratt as CARE's country director had
"a role in setting it up".

"It compromised not just him and his co-defendants but CARE's
entire effort in the Balkans," SBS claimed.

Pratt, a former Australian Army major, was the subject of much
speculation when the Serbians claimed he was arrested carrying
militarily sensitive information.

The SBS programme Dateline has alleged the aid
workers' neutrality was undermined by a secret deal between the
affiliated humanitarian agency CARE Canada and
the Canadian Government, a NATO member.

CARE Canada agreed to recruit a team of ex-military
personnel to monitor breaches of the peace and violence between
KLA guerrillas and Serbian nationalists as threats of war
escalated between NATO and Serbia.

CARE Australia chairman Malcolm Fraser last
night revealed that Pratt had escorted CARE
Canada's director John Watson when he visited the Balkans to
establish the monitoring programme.

"Steve was unhappy because it was not strictly humanitarian,"
he said, but denied the monitoring had anything to do with the
arrest and detention of his agency's employees.

"There was no secret contract. The Yugoslavian government
was supportive of the monitoring programme. They had agreed to it.
It had nothing to do with their arrest, I am absolutely certain
of that."

However, Mr Fraser had asked SBS not to screen
the story until the release of all the CARE
workers for fear the allegations could be "misconstrued in
the courts".

Pratt and Wallace were released in September and Branko Jelen
finally freed last month.

Spokesmen for Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace said neither would
comment on the SBS allegations yesterday.